You Might Be a DBA

With all apologies to Jeff Foxworthy, I was up late Friday night on a holiday weekend (which translated into T-SQL becomes “Maintenance Window”) and I got bored in between the two or three minutes I had between clicks. So I started a “Twitter” meme – and it just took off. I haven’t cleaned these up much, but here, in author order as of Saturday the 29th of May is the list “You might be a DBA” from around the Twitterverse:

buckwoody

Your two main enemies are developers and SAN admins #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

People can use Access as a cross or garlic on you #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

You always plan an exit strategy, even when entering a McDonald's #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

You can't explain to your family what you really do for a living #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

You have at least one set of scripts you won't share #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

You have an opinion on the best code-beautifier #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

You have children older than the rest of your team #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

You and the Oracle DBA would kill each other, but you'll happily fight off a developer together first #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

You've threatened to quit if they give anyone the sa password on production #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

You've sent a vendor suggestions on improving their database design or code (and been ignored) #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

You've sent a vendor suggestions on improving their database design or code (and been ignored) #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

You have an opinion on the best code-beautifier #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

You have at least one set of scripts you won't share #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

You refer to co-workers as "carbon-units" #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

Being paranoid is on your resume at the top #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

Everyone comes to your cube to find the MSDN DVD's #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

You always plan an exit strategy, even when entering a McDonald's #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

You've worn down developers to get your way by explaining normalization levels #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

You refer to clothes as "Data Abstractions" #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

Users pester you to be able to put data in a database, then they pester you to take it out and put it in Excel #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

Others try to de-duplicate data, you try to copy it to more than three locations #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

You have at least one DLT tape in the trunk of your car #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

You use twitter and facebook to talk with colleagues because there's no one else in your company that does what you do #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

Your spouse knows what "ETL" means #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

You've referred to yourself as the "Data Janitor" #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

You don't have positive connotations of the word "upgrade" #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

You get your coffee before you check your servers, because you know you won't get any if you don't #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

You always come to work through the back door so no one hijacks you on the way to your cube #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

You check your server logs before you check your e-mail in the morning so you can reply "Yeah, I already fixed that." #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

You have more conference badges than clean socks #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

Your coffee mug says "It depends" #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

You can convince a boss that you need 16GB of RAM in your laptop #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

You've used ebay to find production equipment #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

You pad all project timelines by 2X, and you still miss them #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

You know when your company is acquiring another even before the CFO #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

You pad all project timelines by 2X, and you still miss them #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

You call aspirin "work vitamins" #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

You get the same amount of sleep even after you have a child #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

You obsess about performance metrics from over one year ago #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

The first thing you buy after the database software is aftermarket tools to manage the database software #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

You've tried to convince someone else to become a DBA #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

You use twitter and facebook to talk with colleagues because there's no one else in your company that does what you do #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

You only know other DBA's by their Tweet Handle #youmightbeaDBA

buckwoody

You've explained the difference between 32 and 64-bit to more than one manager in terms they can understand, using puppets #youmightbeaDBA

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People confuse your job tasks as reception or as PA/administration because your title says "Administrator", but you are really a rocket scientiest, making it difficult for people to understand your job title, hence you just shut up... #youmightbeaDBA